World record holder and Olympic Gold Medalist Usain Bolt is scheduled to face off against former world record holder Asafa Powell this afternoon in Brussells in the 100m for what was supposed to be a showdown between the 3 fastest men on the planet. Unfortunately, Tyson Gay pulled out of the meet yesterday to avoid further aggravating his hamstring injury.

Both runners are coming into the race strong. Bolt set the world record mark at 9.69 seconds during the Olympics, and won at Weltklasse in 9.83 seconds last week. Powell had a disappointing 5^th place finish in the Olympics, but set a personal best mark of 9.72 seconds in Lausanne, the 2^nd fastest unaided 100m race in history and equal to Bolt’s former record set last May.

The meet is going to air tape delayed on ESPN at 11:00 EDT tonight (and on Sunday on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m. EDT), but you can watch the 100m race live on SportsCenter this afternoon on ESPN at 2:25 p.m.

Both men are going to try to chase down the world record, but I don’t think that the weather is going to be conducive to lowering the mark set in Beijing and expect that it will hold for at least another week or two.

Update: As predicted, no world record. Bolt ran 9.77 and Powell ran 9.83.

(Photo Credits: Victah Sailer (Bolt) & Jonas Witt (Powell))